Caveat Vendor

Behnam Dayanim, co-chair of the firm’s global privacy and data security practice and blog managing editor, speaks about the recent revelations of government surveillance of Internet and related communications and the impact of that surveillance on the data center industry.

Since the California Supreme Court issued its highly-anticipated Song-Beverly Credit Card Act decision in February of this year, Apple v. Superior Court (Krescent), various courts in California have had the opportunity to apply Apple to Song-Beverly cases involving e-commerce issues.

On November 1st, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a Public Notice seeking comment on two petitions requesting the agency to forbear from enforcing or clarify aspects of its TCPA regulations regarding prior express written consent, which went into effect on October 16.

Now that Tom Wheeler has been sworn in as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the communications industry is waiting for further signs about the direction of Chairman Wheeler’s regulatory agenda.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) prescribes strict rules for how marketers can use telephones, facsimiles and texts to promote their products and services and the FCC’s new TCPA regulations tighten the screws on what is considered permissible.

The reforms to the EU data protection regime widely expected to be adopted in May 2014 before the European Parliamentary elections may now be delayed to 2015. EurActiv reports that the possible delay is due to efforts by the UK Government last week at a meeting of the European Council after it expressed concerns about the impact of the regulation on business.

A New York state law prohibiting retailers from assessing “surcharges” on transactions in which customers pay using a credit card has recently been held unconstitutional by a court in the Southern District of New York.

As part of a recent flurry of legislative activity with respect to online privacy, on September 27, 2013, California enacted legislation that will dramatically expand the scope of personal data subject to its notification requirements in the event of breach.